Silencing Occupy

Silencing Occupy

Big protests are planned.

Get ready for the protests. Get ready for the
warm American spring — and maybe a hot summer and fall. Vast economic
inequality has not disappeared and, in a presidential election year, the
supremacy of money in politics will be extravagantly displayed.

But
if you protest, also get ready for "free-speech zones," "pop-up"
restricted areas, National Special Security Events, and — with the
signing on March 8 by President Barack Obama of HR 347 — a suddenly
sharper federal anti-protest law. Despite American constitutional rights
to speak freely, to assemble, and to petition for redress of
grievances, suppression of protest is just as American.

HR
347's title, the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement
Act of 2011, suggests court-house landscaping, but its true impact cuts
much deeper. Without debate, it flew through the Senate with unanimous
consent. In the House, only three members voted against it, all
Republican, most notably presidential candidate Ron Paul. The brief
debate featured jokes about the Super Bowl.

But
after its February passage, HR 347 caught the attention of lefty and
libertarian bloggers. They saw it as the end of the right to protest and
the beginning of outright fascism — with Occupy in its crosshairs.
Their reaction reflects a political atmosphere in which the Obama
administration is justifying assassinating American citizens without
trial as a necessary part of the War on Terror.

The
reality of HR 347 is more nuanced, say civil-liberties lawyers. Many
months before Occupy Wall Street materialized, the bill had been
introduced in Congress at the behest of the Secret Service, which
protects the president, vice-president, and other dignitaries. And HR
347 doesn't make protest illegal. It just makes it riskier.

"Fairly
histrionic," says Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, co-chair of the National
Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee, of the blogs and e-mails she has
seen on HR 347. Although she thinks "a significant crackdown" on dissent
is taking place, a "crescendo of fear" is the last thing that should
happen because of HR 347. "People should be in the streets."

What's
important to know, Verheyden-Hilliard says, is that HR 347 only makes
worse "a terrible law" — Section 1752 of Title 18 of the United States
Code. It's been around since 1971 and was strengthened in 2006.

Section
1752 prohibits people from "restricted" areas around the president,
vice-president, and anyone else protected by the Secret Service. These
other protectees — including presidential candidates, former presidents,
and foreign heads of state — are common protest targets. The law also
can be used at "special" national events like presidential nominating
conventions. Violators could get a year in jail, 10 years if a weapon is
involved.

Gabe Rottman, a
Washington attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, says HR
347's most important provision makes it easier to prosecute protesters.
Formerly, to be convicted of being in, or blocking the access to, a
Secret Service–restricted area, or of engaging in "disorderly or
disruptive conduct" inside or in "proximity" to a restricted area (or
conspiring to do these things), the person had to do it "willfully and
knowingly."

Now, it's only necessary
to prove that the individual did it "knowingly" — that is, that the
person knew she or he was in a restricted area, even if the person
didn't know it was illegal to be there.

Although a spokesman for the Secret Service wouldn't comment to the Phoenix on the elimination of "willfully" in HR 347, he says the new law represents only "a technical change."

Protest Pens and National Special Security Events

How
bad the amended Section 1752 is, of course, depends on how it's
enforced. Occupy Boston activist-attorney Deborah Butler is struck by
the "deliberately ambiguous" language in the law, which allows for
"selective enforcement."

"Disrupt the orderly conduct of government business." Is being noisy disruptive, she asks? "Proximity." "Is that 15 feet or 50 feet? Or so close that we can hear you?" And conspiring to do something also can be very ambiguous.

These
aren't academic questions. Butler recalls demonstrating at a New
Hampshire Republican presidential primary debate in January when the 500
protesters — including a 12-piece marching band — were herded into a
"protest pen" in a back parking lot far from the candidates.

In
an Orwellian phrasing, the authorities call protest pens "free-speech
zones," though they often are far from the news media as well as the
objects of the protest. Butler calls them "unfree-speech zones of
temporary incarceration."

Protest
pens and restricted areas aren't only used where the Secret Service is
present. Local police, using trespass or disorderly-conduct laws,
commonly use them to restrict protests. And they can be instant and
unadvertised, in which case they are known as "pop-up" restricted zones.

On
October 1 in New York, 700 Occupy Wall Street marchers on the Brooklyn
Bridge were herded into buses and taken to jail. Many said they had been
led onto the roadway by the police and then arrested.
Verheyden-Hilliard, who is legal director of the Partnership for Civil
Justice Fund in Washington, is suing the city on their behalf.
Nationally, more than 6700 people have been arrested in Occupy actions
since last September.

The big
protest targets this year — like the Group of Eight (G-8) and NATO
meetings and the presidential conventions — are likely to see the
greatest use of protest pens and pop-up restricted areas. Such big
events are usually designated National Special Security Events (NSSEs)
by the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Secret Service's boss.

The
ACLU's Rottman says Homeland Security has huge discretion in
designating NSSEs. And the restrictions of the newly revised Section
1752 anti-protest law apply to these events regardless of whether a
Secret Service–protected dignitary is present. In fact, every Super Bowl
since 9/11 has been declared an NSSE.

Here come the people

As
the weather warms up, big and small protests — not just Occupy
re-encampments — are being planned and already are taking place. Occupy
Boston has called for a "national day of action" on April 4 to support
public transportation. Occupy Providence recently demonstrated for a
financial transactions tax. Occupy Augusta protested outside the offices
of Maine's most prominent corporate lobbyists.

Nationally,
Occupy Chicago is celebrating after forcing the May 18-19 G-8 summit to
be abruptly switched to Camp David, the president's wooded Maryland
retreat, in order to minimize the protests. But Chicago's May 20-21 NATO
meeting still gives activists a big bull's-eye.

In
what could herald a dramatic turn toward radical action within the
progressive mainstream, moveon.org and the 99% Spring coalition of more
than 50 groups, including big unions like the United Auto Workers, have
announced they will train 100,000 people in direct action and nonviolent
civil disobedience.

Training
sessions will take place at 550 locations around the country beginning
April 9. The coalition's first big protests will be on Tax Day, April
15.

Occupy provided the inspiration.
Jeff Hauser, a spokesman in Washington for the AFL-CIO, a 99% Spring
coalition member, says the labor movement has been "extraordinarily
impressed by Occupy." John Cavanagh, director of Washington's Institute
for Policy Studies, says of 99% Spring, "We're building a new
infrastructure of the progressive movement."

Potentially,
2012's biggest protest targets are the national presidential nominating
conventions — August 27-30, in Tampa, Florida, for the Republicans;
September 3-6, in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the Democrats. Congress
has appropriated $50 million for security for each convention.